by Jeff Zillgitt, USA TODAY Sports

by Jeff Zillgitt, USA TODAY Sports

MIAMI - Something about playing the Miami Heat brings out the best in the Chicago Bulls. Since March 1, the Heat have lost three times, twice to the Bulls.

The Bulls nearly made it three on Wednesday.

The Heat avoided a disastrous loss, and eliminated Chicago with a 94-91 victory in Game 5.

Miami advances to the Eastern Conference finals for the third consecutive season and will play the winner of the Indiana Pacers-New York Knicks series. If the Pacers beat the Knicks in Game 5 Thursday, they will play the Heat in Game 1 on Monday in Miami. If the Knicks win Game 5, the East finals will start Wednesday in Miami.

The Heat almost didn't. They squandered an 18-point lead, overcame an 11-point deficit and finished off Chicago with a 25-14 fourth quarter.

"When you play the Chicago Bulls, you wouldn't expect any finish to be any different, anything less than that," Spoelstra said. "We knew from the beginning of the series we would have to earn everything. ‚?¶ They played well. They came to compete. They made it extremely tough."

The Bulls, playing basically six players, gave everything they had, and ultimately ran out of everything they had against a more talented team.

"I told the guys this yesterday. Obviously we're disappointed in losing the series, but I was never disappointed in our team," Thibodeau said. "I thought our team fought hard all year long. There was no quit in them. ‚?¶ I thought we would come in and give it everything we had."

Miami backup Norris Cole scored five points in a stretch of two minutes, 27 seconds, and Wade, playing with a bruised and sometimes painful right knee, had two big floaters in the lane and a putback dunk, helping Miami re-take and hold onto the lead in the fourth quarter.

James had 23 points, eight assists and seven rebounds. James made just 5-for-14 shots, but was 12-for-15 from the foul line. Wade had 18 points on 7-for-13 shooting, six assists and five rebounds, proving Spoelstra right. Even with an injury, Wade finds a way to help Miami win.

Bulls forward Carlos Boozer had 26 points and 14 rebounds, and guard-forward indefatigable Jimmy Butler had 19 points in 48 minutes, the fourth time in the past six games he has played the entire game.

Chicago had a chance to tie the score on the game's final possession. The Bulls scrambled to get a shot off, and guard Nate Robinson and Butler both missed three pointers.

It looked like a Miami route from the start. The Heat raced to a 22-4 lead and James had just four points, setting up his teammates for shots.

When the Bulls had every reason to pack it in and call it a season, they refused, and not surprisingly given their resilient disposition instilled by Thibodeau.

The Bulls have played too many games this season with too many players missing and have overachieved. They weren't finished without a final swing or two.

"We basically just said play for each other, grind it out together and and we did," Boozer said. "We didn't quit. ‚?¶ We had our chance. We just fell a little short."

Said Bulls center Joakim Noah: "It was a hard year. A lot of adversity, a lot of injuries, but there was no giving up in this team," Noah said. "It's always disappointing, always hard to lose, but I'm really, really proud of this team, because it's about always winning and losing, but I'm really proud of the character of this team and how hard we fought all year."

Spoelstra knew the Bulls had it in them, too, despite Miami winning the previous three games by an average margin of 23.3 points.

Never too up and never too down, Boozer said before the game, "It will be fun. Our backs are against the wall. We weren't supposed to be here, but we are. We look forward to it. Like I told everybody last series, closeout games are the hardest ones to win on their side of it.

"On this side of it, we've got nothing to lose. We're going to go out there, play free and hard like we always do. You never know what can happen."

From the point Miami took an 18-point lead with 5:25 left in the first quarter, the Bulls outscored Miami 49-25 and had a 53-47 lead at halftime. Boozer had 19, guard Nate Robinson had 14 and Butler had 12 points.

Seldom-used veteran guard Richard Hamilton gave the Bulls a lift with six points in 19 minutes, and Thibodeau had to explain why why he didn't play Hamilton in the first three games of the series.

"He played well today, and you've got to make decisions that are best for the team, and that's what I did," Thibodeau said. "You have to look at how the team functions. He did a good job today. Give him credit. He's a pro. That's what he's paid to do."

For a five-game series with two blowouts, it was competitive, and after the physical series ended, it became the mutual admiration society.

"I'm not sure of all my closeout games, but this is one of the toughest ones we've had in my career," James said.

Thibodeau praised the Heat.

"They play to win. They play for each other. They're not going to beat themselves. You have to beat them. ‚?¶ You have to play well for 48 minutes," Thibodeau said. "The sacrifices that LeBron, Dwyane and Chris Bosh have made to win says a lot about them."

And both coaches expressed of tinge of disappointment that injuries impacted the series. The Bulls were without Kirk Hinrich (bruised left calf) and forward Luol Deng (illness) for the series, and of course, guard Derrick Rose didn't play one minute this season.

"It's a shame. I think everybody would have wanted to have seen both teams healthy," Spoelstra said. "Even as competitors, we have a bigger goal, and it has to be no mercy. You take care of your business, you survive and move on. We all know they've gone through a great deal of adversity."